Viridiana

Viridiana ( Sylvia Pinal ) is a young novice who only dreams of serving God. Before taking the tonsure, she agrees to the proposal of her uncle, don Jaime ( Fernando Rey ), who kept her for many years, and comes to visit his house. Uncle is amazed at her resemblance to her late wife, who died in a wedding dress on her wedding night, and asks Viridiana to do him a favor and put on this dress in the evening. He puts sleeping pills into her glass, puts the insensitive Viridian in bed and begins to undress, however, having come to his senses, he leaves her room.

In the morning, Don Jaime declares that during the time of unconsciousness Viridiana was close to her, which, apparently, is not true. An indignant girl immediately leaves his house with the intention of returning to the monastery, but at the station she is informed that her uncle hanged himself. Viridiana returns home and decides to “do good” on his own, by opening a poorhouse and poorhouse in the house of don Jaime. She does not see that the lumpen who she has benefited from, who hypocritically call her a saint, secretly chuckle at her, and in her absence they behave licentiously and intolerantly.

Meanwhile, the beautiful, energetic and pragmatic son of don Jaime, Jorge ( Francisco Rabal ), arrives at the house with his roommate. He wants to bring electricity into the house and establish agricultural production on the estate. Viridiana’s selfless care for the poor makes him smile. Having quarreled with a girlfriend, he secretly agrees with Ramona, a faithful servant of don Jaime. One evening, when the inhabitants of the house set off on business to the city, the beggars fill the rooms of the gentlemen and, under the rumble of the Handelle Hallelujah choir, organize an unbridled orgy in them. In the key scene of the film, the ugly, ugly figures of the participants of the drinking party freeze at the table in the poses of the apostles from The Last Supper by Leonardo da Vinci .

Jorge, Ramona and Viridiana suddenly return home and disperse uninvited guests. Two beggars whom Viridian favored attack Jorge with a knife and try to rape the girl. They are saved only by the timely arrival of the police, which was caused by the vigilant Ramona. Having recovered from the shock, Viridiana opens a shelter and in the evening joins don Jorge and Ramona at the card table in a peculiar ménage à trois . The result of the film: “Her desire for ideal, selfless kindness and attempts to kind of“ go to the people ”fail, destroying herself as a person and bringing her uncle to the grave of an unfortunate uncle” ( Andrei Plakhov ). ^[2]

The storyline of the film freely follows one of the novels of Benito Perez Galdos . Numerous subject and thematic roll calls with “ Nazarin ” and “ Tristana ”. As in the mentioned films, Bunuel returns to his beloved thought that the “holy life” preached by the Catholic Church is based on crowding out the natural human needs, and they return in exaggerated form, leading to catastrophic consequences for both the “holy” and for others.

The eternal misanthrope and anti-clerical Bunuel here is as cruel as possible, with a minimum of expressive means, in a strict, much more classic manner than in his subsequent French works, puts this world into a deuce. He responds with a slap in the face to the Italian neo-realism that was not excessive in those years with its cult of honest poor and holy little people, portraying holiness as exalted naivety, and poverty as a corrupting vice.

- afisha.ru ^[3]

After the release of the film, a critic of the major American publication, Films In Review, wrote ^[4] :

Bunuel is losing his sense of reality and is increasingly slipping into the dark depths of psychopathology and evil. They destroy his talent and at the same time are a new nutritious source for him ... Bunuel created abnormal placers in Viridian, and for this various psychopaths extol the film to heaven.

The premiere of Viridiana took place on May 17, 1961 at the Cannes Film Festival. Despite the rejection of conservatives, Viridiana shared the Golden Palm Branch of the festival with the French film So Long Absent . The premiere of the picture in Spain took place only in 1976, after the fall of the Franco regime.

In many cinematographic works, Viridiana is regarded as the magnum opus of Bunuel and the central work of Spanish cinema as a whole. ^{[1] [5]}

• Bunuel about Bunuel. - M .: Rainbow, 1989 .-- 384 p. - ISBN 5-05-002421-8 .

• Kopylova R. Fernando Ray // Actors of foreign cinema. - Issue 12 / Comp. M. L. Zhezhelenko. - L .: Art , 1978. - S. 145-165. - 207 p.

• Viridiana on the Internet Movie Database  
• Viridiana on the allmovie website